On the nearby "Epidemics" thread, SB Mig has a good post today that, inter alia, brings up the survivalist issues that could arise during a epidemic such as having to hunker down in one's home for an extended stretch.

As an Angeleno, such questions have been on my radar screen for a while due to the plethora of possibilities for pandemonium in the greater Los Angeles region-- earthquake, brushfire, terrorism, mass breakdown of social order (think of the Rodney King riots), shut off of water to LA etc. An epidemic is simply one more SHTF scenario for us. Being snowed in might be one for other parts of the country.

Anyway, this thread is for asking questions and sharing tips about being able to hunker down at home for an extended stretch.

I'll kick things off:

We have a large generator. At a hardware store it probably would have cost over $800 but at Costco we were able to get it for under $400. We have 15 gallons of gasoline. We start up the generator about twice a year to make sure all is well.

I am looking into solar packs for cell phones and lap top computers

We have somewhere between 25 and 50 gallons of water.

I am not clear on how many days of food that does not require cooking that we have-- but I should be.

The house has suitable levels of firepower for social disorder as well.

TAC,Marc

PS: I see SB Mig has just added this to his post: http://www.slate.com/id/2148772/sidebar/2149226/ent/2148778/It looks very useful-- thanks SB!

In light of recent events (9/11 to Katrina) I find it extremely important to be prepared for any eventuality. My wife and I had an interesting conversation with a good friend who happens to be a fireman. In his words, "Don't count on any help in case of a major disaster. You WILL be on your own for AT LEAST 72 hours." And that is in our small city of 100,000.

One of the first steps in putting together an emergency plan is tracking down good information. Fortunately, in today's internet world, this is easy to come by. Just a few links:

At the very minimum, you should have enough food and water to last 72 hours (3 Days). Post-Katrina, my wife and I increased that to 10 days. IMHO it is better to have too much food than not enough. An extra couple of cans of food/dry goods with each shopping trip can take care of this very quickly. We just rotate it out every few months.

After food and water, a feasible emergency plan is necessary. Out of town contacts are a must, as is a meeting place in case your own house is damaged/inaccessible. We have a group of like-minded friends who will try to meet in case of catastrophic disaster to form a small, defense-minded unit (safety in numbers). Good communication with neighbors is also key.

Case of water (easy purchase at COSTCO or Trader Joes)Mini emergency kitFirst aid kitChange of clotes and sturdy shoes

My office:

Case of waterFirst aid kitEmergency kit

A trip to the local firehouse is also beneficial. They may have an area map that shows you local fault lines, flood zones, etc. As it stands, we are located between two fault lines and are about 10 feet underwater should a tsunami occur.

This subject is often discussed in detail between myself and a coworker. We share the common ideal of wanting to survive through unforeseen events, from something as simple as the common flu to much more threatening circumstances. An excellent source of information can be found with Ron Hood's gang at:

In particular, he has a series available called the Urban Master, which outlines survival in the cities and 'burbs when staying put in the home is paramount. If you are looking for a DVD on the subject which has plenty of sterling info, this is one I'd recommend highly.

Great stuff so far. As a survivor of a few hurricanes including Andrew let me throw in my 2 cents.

Among your preparations include gasoline and cash. When the power goes, the gas pumps and atms don't work. Yes I know some gas stations claim they taken steps to correct this. Guess what........ Locking gas caps are a great idea. When the gas lines get long the sipheners come out, beware!

Storing water is okay but now I also keep a couple of filters handy. Gas grills are preferable than barbecues. You can regulate the heat with the gas grills. Canned food is good. We were able to cook meals that where pretty good. Consider rice, pasta and other goods that don't need refrigeration. We stock up on things we'd eat anyway. Powdered baby formula is essential if you have a child. Make single servings to avoid spoilage. If you're into coffee it's a great moral booster. If you can manage both, you can barbecue your meats just after the storm, befriend your neighbors, and plan for the common defense. Sounds cooky but it made a huge diffrence for us during our two weeks of darkness.

Baby wipes, duct tape, industrial size tie wraps, and work gloves should all be in your kit. Baby wipes help maintain everyones hygine not just clean your baby's butt. Duct tape, need I say more. Work gloves are essential for avoiding blisters when clearing debry. You do have an ax, saw and/or chainsaw? Industrial tie wraps for detaining looters. Maybe they surrendered. No I haven't needed them, but heard of several cases where they would have been useful.

During natural disasters you'll see incredible acts of kindness and neighborly love. Unfortunately you'll also see some of the most discusting opportunist taking advantage of the chaos. Looters come out of seemingly everywhere including other states. Consider using the debry to control access to your area. We blocked of one side of the culdesac we used to live in with the downed trees we where clearing. This severely limited access to vehicles. From listening to a police scanner we knew looters where going to isolated neighborhoods in 4 wheel drive vehicles ,in large numbers , and armed to the teeth. Having firearms available at least would give us a fighting chance. Controlling the terrain is a defininte advantage. Pistols are okay but rifles rule. Long guns, particularly military style rifles are really what you want during times of civil unrest.

The police cant help you immediately. In fact we where on our own for days. Fortunately nothing happened. As a husband and father it is my duty to protect my familly. Fortunately I have friends and familly that could aid us in the common defense. There was one case where armed looters disarmed and robbed a community. The people of this community where unwilling to shoot the looters who where also armed. They layed their arms down and stepped aside while the thieves took what they wished. Fortunately they didn't take their women or children.

Communication is essential. Having a NON cordless telephone available is very useful. Lan lines often work even when the power is down. Cordless phones however need electricity from an outlet to function. Cellphones are great, yet will not work if the cell towers are damaged. Still having a converter which allows you to charge things with your car is a great idea. Often times pay phones will also work. Still having a plan is essential. A list of people to call after the storm is a good idea. Meeting points are great when appropriate.

By the way 911 wasn't working for days after one hurricane just grazed us. Make sure you have good supply of any medications. A friend discovered much to his distress the VA hospital didn't have his life saving medication and wouldn't have it for days following a hurricane. Of course the usual aspirin, tylenol stuff should also be included. As should citronella candles. Mosquitoes, heat and other discomforts just add to the misery. If you could swing it, small battery powered fans, the type you could use while camping do wonders in creating comfort. Portable battery powered dvd player/tv's are great for entertainment particularly for the kids. Remember that converter to charge things from your car? We played cards, dominoes, and board games.

Frogs Swarmed in China Before the Quake--Now It's California Frogs Swarmed in China Before the Quake--Now It's California19-May-2008

In the days prior to the gigantic earthquake that devastated Sichuan province in China, odd swarms of frogs were seen in the streets of cities in the area, and have subsequently been identified as unusual animal behavior of the type that is thought by some geologists to precede earthquakes. Now it has developed that similar frog appearances have been taking place in Bakersfield, California for about two weeks, and nobody is sure why. Strange swarms of frogs also appeared before the 6.9 Loma Prieta Earthquake in October of 1989.

The frogs are emerging from a drainage ditch and are being observed in swarms of hundreds by local residents. Nobody can remember a frog swarm like this in the area. The animals appear to be emerging from a drainage ditch, and it is possible that a lack of natural predators in the water has allowed the overgrowth of frogs.

A more controversial earthquake sign is linear clouds, or clouds that appear arrayed in lines, such as those shown in this photograph, which was taken in Shandong Province, also on May 9, 2 days prior to the Sichuan quake. So far, such clouds have not been observed by Unknowncountry.com correspondents in California, but should you see a similar formation, please photograph it and send the picture to us at News@unknowncountry.com .

If you live in California, do consider making preparations for an earthquake. If you have made such preparations, check your supplies, especially water supplies, and review your family emergency plan. However, there is no conclusive evidence that the Bakersfield toads represent more than a disturbing coincidence. There are far fewer of them than appeared in China, and they have been swarming for two weeks. The frogs in China appeared just two days before the quake took place, and in much greater numbers.http://www.unknowncountry.com/news/?id=6882

A Wall Street Journal columnist has advised people to "start stockpiling food" and an ABC News Report says "there are worrying signs appearing in the United States where some … locals are beginning to hoard supplies." Now there's concern that the U.S. government may be competing with consumers for stocks of storable food.

"We're told that the feds bought the entire container of canned butter when it hit the California docks. (Something's up!)," said officials at Best Prices Storable Foods in an advisory to customers.

Spokesman Bruce Hopkins told WND he also has had trouble obtaining No. 10 cans of various products from one of the world's larger suppliers of food stores, Oregon Freeze Dry.

He said a company official told him on the telephone when he discussed the status of his order that it was because the government had purchased massive quantities of products, leaving none for other customers.

That, however, was denied by Oregon Freeze Dry. In a website statement, the company confirmed it cannot assure supplying some items to customers.

"We regret to inform you Oregon Freeze Dry cannot satisfy all Mountain House #10 can orders and we have removed #10 cans from our website temporarily," the company tells frustrated customers. "The reason for this is sales of #10 cans have continued to increase. OFD is allocating as much production capacity as possible to this market segment, but we must maintain capacity for our other market segments as well."

The company statement continues, "We want to clarify inaccurate information we’ve seen on the Internet. This situation is not due to sales to the government domestically or in Iraq. We do sell products to this market, but we also sell other market segments … The reason for this decision is solely due to an unprecedented sales spike in #10 cans sales.

"We expect this situation to be necessary for several months although this isn’t a guarantee. We will update this information as soon as we know more. We apologize for this inconvenience and appreciate your patience. We sincerely hope you will continue to be Mountain House customers in the future," the company statement said.

But Hopkins wasn't backing away from his concerns.

"The government just came in and said they're buying it. They did pay for it," he told WND about the summertime shipment of long-term storage butter. "They took it and no one else could have it.

"We don't know why. The feds then went to freeze dried companies, and bought most of their canned stock," he said.

A spokeswoman for Oregon Freeze Dry, sales manager Melanie Cornutt, told WND that the increasing demand for food that can be stored has been on the rise since Hurricane Katrina devastated large sections of the Gulf Coast, cutting off ordinary supply routes.

"We are currently out of stock on our cans. We are not selling any of our cans," she confirmed.

She then raised the issue of government purchases herself.

"We do sell to the government [but] it is not the reason [for company sales limits]," she said.

Officials with the Federal Emergency Management Agency told WND whatever government agency is buying in a surge it isn't them. They reported a stockpile of about six million meals which has not changed significantly in an extended period.

But Hopkins said it was his opinion the government is purchasing huge quantities of food for stockpiles, and Americans will have to surmise why.

"We don't have shelters that [are being] stocked with food. We're not doing this for the public. My only conclusion is that they're stocking up for themselves," he said of government officials.

"It came to our attention today, that the world's largest producer of storable foods, Mountain House, is currently out of stock of ALL #10 cans of freeze dried foods, not just the Turkey Tetrazzini. They will NOT have product now through 2009," she said.

"This information was learned by a Mountain House dealer who shared it with me this morning. In personally talking with the company immediately after, Mountain House verified the information is true. Customer service stated, 'I'm surprised they don't have this posted on the website yet.' She said they have such a backlog of orders, Mountain House will not be taking any #10 can food requests through the remainder of this year and all of the next.

"Mountain House claims this situation is due to a backlog of orders, which may very well be true, but who is purchasing all of their food? This is a massive global corporation.

"One idea: the military. Tensions are ramping up with Iran and news segments debate whether or not we will implement a preemptive strike in conjunction with Israel," she wrote.

Hopkins raised some of the same concerns, suggesting a military conflict could cause oil supplies to plummet, triggering a huge increase in the cost of food – when it would be available – because of the transportation issues.

The ABC report from just a few weeks ago quoted Jim Rawles, a former U.S. intelligence officer who runs a survival blog, saying food shortages soon could become a matter of survival in the U.S.

"I think that families should be prepared for times of crisis, whether it's a man-made disaster or a natural disaster, and I think it's wise and prudent to stock up on food," he told ABC.

"If you get into a situation where fuel supplies are disrupted or even if the power grid were to go down for short periods of time, people can work around that," he said. "But you can't work around a lack of food – people starve, people panic and you end up with chaos in the streets."

At his California ranch, the location of which is kept secret, he said, "We have more than a three-year supply of food here."

Iran has carried out missile tests for what could be a plan for a nuclear strike on the United States, the head of a national security panel has warned.

In testimony before the House Armed Services Committee and in remarks to a private conference on missile defense over the weekend hosted by the Claremont Institute, Dr. William Graham warned that the U.S. intelligence community “doesn’t have a story” to explain the recent Iranian tests. One group of tests that troubled Graham, the former White House science adviser under President Ronald Reagan, were successful efforts to launch a Scud missile from a platform in the Caspian Sea.

“They’ve got [test] ranges in Iran which are more than long enough to handle Scud launches and even Shahab-3 launches,” Dr. Graham said. “Why would they be launching from the surface of the Caspian Sea? They obviously have not explained that to us.”

Another troubling group of tests involved Shahab-3 launches where the Iranians "detonated the warhead near apogee, not over the target area where the thing would eventually land, but at altitude,” Graham said. “Why would they do that?”

Graham chairs the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack, a blue-ribbon panel established by Congress in 2001. The commission examined the Iranian tests “and without too much effort connected the dots,” even though the U.S. intelligence community previously had failed to do so, Graham said.

“The only plausible explanation we can find is that the Iranians are figuring out how to launch a missile from a ship and get it up to altitude and then detonate it,” he said. “And that’s exactly what you would do if you had a nuclear weapon on a Scud or a Shahab-3 or other missile, and you wanted to explode it over the United States.”

The commission warned in a report issued in April that the United States was at risk of a sneak nuclear attack by a rogue nation or a terrorist group designed to take out our nation’s critical infrastructure.

"If even a crude nuclear weapon were detonated anywhere between 40 kilometers to 400 kilometers above the earth, in a split-second it would generate an electro-magnetic pulse [EMP] that would cripple military and civilian communications, power, transportation, water, food, and other infrastructure," the report warned.

While not causing immediate civilian casualties, the near-term impact on U.S. society would dwarf the damage of a direct nuclear strike on a U.S. city.

“The first indication [of such an attack] would be that the power would go out, and some, but not all, the telecommunications would go out. We would not physically feel anything in our bodies,” Graham said.

As electric power, water and gas delivery systems failed, there would be “truly massive traffic jams,” Graham added, since modern automobiles and signaling systems all depend on sophisticated electronics that would be disabled by the EMP wave.

“So you would be walking. You wouldn’t be driving at that point,” Graham said. “And it wouldn’t do any good to call the maintenance or repair people because they wouldn’t be able to get there, even if you could get through to them.”

The food distribution system also would grind to a halt as cold-storage warehouses stockpiling perishables went offline. Even warehouses equipped with backup diesel generators would fail, because “we wouldn’t be able to pump the fuel into the trucks and get the trucks to the warehouses,” Graham said.

The United States “would quickly revert to an early 19th century type of country.” except that we would have 10 times as many people with ten times fewer resources, he said. “Most of the things we depend upon would be gone, and we would literally be depending on our own assets and those we could reach by walking to them,” Graham said. America would begin to resemble the 2002 TV series, “Jeremiah,” which depicts a world bereft of law, infrastructure, and memory. In the TV series, an unspecified virus wipes out the entire adult population of the planet. In an EMP attack, the casualties would be caused by our almost total dependence on technology for everything from food and water, to hospital care. Within a week or two of the attack, people would start dying, Graham says.

“People in hospitals would be dying faster than that, because they depend on power to stay alive. But then it would go to water, food, civil authority, emergency services. And we would end up with a country with many, many people not surviving the event.”

Asked just how many Americans would die if Iran were to launch the EMP attack it appears to be preparing, Graham gave a chilling reply.

“You have to go back into the 1800s to look at the size of population” that could survive in a nation deprived of mechanized agriculture, transportation, power, water, and communication.

“I’d have to say that 70 to 90 percent of the population would not be sustainable after this kind of attack,” he said.

America would be reduced to a core of around 30 million people — about the number that existed in the decades after America’s independence from Great Britain. The modern electronic economy would shut down, and America would most likely revert to “an earlier economy based on barter,” the EMP commission’s report on Critical National Infrastructure concluded earlier this year.

In his recent congressional testimony, Graham revealed that Iranian military journals, translated by the CIA at his commission’s request, “explicitly discuss a nuclear EMP attack that would gravely harm the United States.”

Furthermore, if Iran launched its attack from a cargo ship plying the commercial sea lanes off the East coast — a scenario that appears to have been tested during the Caspian Sea tests — U.S. investigators might never determine who was behind the attack. Because of the limits of nuclear forensic technology, it could take months. And to disguise their traces, the Iranians could simply decide to sink the ship that had been used to launch it, Graham said. Several participants in last weekend’s conference in Dearborn, Mich., hosted by the conservative Claremont Institute argued that Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was thinking about an EMP attack when he opined that “a world without America is conceivable.”

In May 2007, then Undersecretary of State John Rood told Congress that the U.S. intelligence community estimates that Iran could develop an ICBM capable of hitting the continental United States by 2015. But Iran could put a Scud missile on board a cargo ship and launch from the commercial sea lanes off America’s coasts well before then. The only thing Iran is lacking for an effective EMP attack is a nuclear warhead, and no one knows with any certainty when that will occur. The latest U.S. intelligence estimate states that Iran could acquire the fissile material for a nuclear weapon as early as 2009, or as late as 2015, or possibly later.

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld first detailed the “Scud-in-a-bucket” threat during a briefing in Huntsville, Ala., on Aug. 18, 2004.

While not explicitly naming Iran, Rumsfeld revealed that “one of the nations in the Middle East had launched a ballistic missile from a cargo vessel. They had taken a short-range, probably Scud missile, put it on a transporter-erector launcher, lowered it in, taken the vessel out into the water, peeled back the top, erected it, fired it, lowered it, and covered it up. And the ship that they used was using a radar and electronic equipment that was no different than 50, 60, 100 other ships operating in the immediate area.”

Iran’s first test of a ship-launched Scud missile occurred in spring 1998, and was mentioned several months later in veiled terms by the Commission to Assess the Ballistic Missile Threat to the United States, a blue-ribbon panel also known as the Rumsfeld Commission. I was the first reporter to mention the Iran sea-launched missile test in an article appearing in the Washington Times in May 1999.

Intelligence reports on the launch were “well known to the White House but have not been disseminated to the appropriate congressional committees,” I wrote. Such a missile “could be used in a devastating stealth attack against the United States or Israel for which the United States has no known or planned defense.”

Few experts believe that Iran can be deterred from launching such an attack by the threat of massive retaliation against Iran. They point to a December 2001 statement by former Iranian President Ali Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani, who mulled the possibility of Israeli retaliation after an Iranian nuclear strike.

“The use of an atomic bomb against Israel would destroy Israel completely, while [the same] against the Islamic only would cause damages. Such a scenario is not inconceivable,” Rafsanjani said at the time.

Rep. Trent Franks, R, Ariz., plans to introduce legislation next week that would require the Pentagon to lay the groundwork for an eventual military strike against Iran, to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons and EMP capability. “An EMP attack on America would send us back to the horse and buggy era — without the horse and buggy,” he told the Claremont Institute conference on Saturday. “If you’re a terrorist, this is your ultimate goal, your ultimate asymmetric weapon.” Noting Iran’s recent sea-launched and mid-flight warhead detonation tests, Rep. Franks concluded, “They could do it — either directly or anonymously by putting some freighter out there on the ocean.”

The only possible deterrent against Iran is the prospect of failure, Dr. Graham and other experts agreed. And the only way the United States could credibly threaten an Iranian missile strike would be to deploy effective national missile defenses.

“It’s well known that people don’t go on a diet until they’ve had a heart attack,” said Claremont Institute president Brian T. Kennedy. “And we as a nation are having a heart attack” when it comes to the threat of an EMP attack from Iran.

“As of today, we have no defense against such an attack. We need space-based missile defenses to protect against an EMP attack,” he told Newsmax.

Rep. Franks said he remains surprised at how partisan the subject of space-based missile defenses remain. “Nuclear missiles don’t discriminate on party lines when they land,” he said. Arizona Republican Sen. Jon Kyl, a long-standing champion of missile defense, told the Claremont conference on Friday that Sen. Obama has opposed missile defense tooth and nail and as president would cut funding for these programs dramatically. “Senator Obama has been quoted as saying, ‘I don’t agree with a missile defense system,’ and that we can cut $10 billion of the research out — never mind, as I say, that the entire budget is $9.6 billion, or $9.3 billion,” Kyl said. Like Franks, Kyl believes that the only way to eventually deter Iran from launching an EMP attack on the United States is to deploy robust missile defense systems, including space-based interceptors.

The United States “needs a missile defense that is so strong, in all the different phases we need to defend against . . . that countries will decide it’s not worth coming up against us. That’s one of the things that defeated the Soviet Union. That’s one of the ways we can deal with these rogue states . . . and also the way that we can keep countries that are not enemies today, but are potential enemies, from developing capabilities to challenge us,“ Kyl said.

L.A. Quake Was Minor, but Is America Ready for the Big One?By Erik SofgePublished on: July 30, 2008

Spectators look at a Pomona, California, scene where bricks collapsed into an alley from an unoccupied building during a magnitude 5.4 earthquake on July 29th. (Photograph by David McNew/Getty Images)

Yesterday morning, Los Angeles dodged another bullet. The earthquake that originated near Chino Hills, roughly 35 miles east of downtown L.A., was powerful enough to rattle homes and damage a hotel near the epicenter. But with a magnitude of 5.4, it was classified by the United States Geological Survey (USGS) as a moderate quake—one of 39 such events in the country this year. A moderate earthquake could pose a serious threat in some regions, particularly in places like New York City, where many brownstones were built more than a century ago. In Southern California, where seismic upheaval is practically routine, this quake left few signs of its passage.

“Engineered structures are meant to withstand a 5.4 earthquake,” says Jamie Steidl, a research seismologist at the University of California at Santa Barbara’s Institute for Crustal Studies. “Even non-engineered, old, unreinforced masonry structures should still be okay. There’s lots of old stuff in Long Beach, and in some of these cities that have been around awhile—older brick buildings that aren’t reinforced. But at this magnitude, we’re not even pushing what the building code was 80 years ago.” The quake preparedness of Los Angeles was put to the test yesterday, but only barely.

The Chino Hills event, minor as it may have been, was a reminder of the United States’ earthquake vulnerability. In Japan and Mexico, researchers have developed earthquake early warning systems, which can detect seismic activity and trigger a sequence of automated responses. This is a frantic sort of race, since the waves created by an earthquake propagate at some 3 kilometers, or nearly 2 miles, per second. In Japan, where quakes tend to start in offshore subduction zones, some areas would have a minute or more to prepare for the worst. “There’s a whole bunch you can do in 60 seconds,” says Thomas Jordan, director of the Southern California Earthquake Center (SCEC). “Shutting off gas mains. Conditioning the electrical grid for what’s going to happen. In hospital situations, especially during surgery, there’s a lot you can do.”

So far, Japan’s early warning system hasn’t done very much—it failed to detect the country’s last two moderate quakes. But in the United States, the outlook is even worse, since no such earthquake early warning system exists, though some preliminary research is underway. “Right now, we’re just fiddling with the concepts,” says Jordan. “We’re not into operational testing, yet.” Coincidentally, says Jordan, a Caltech team reported that its experimental detection gear had been off-line when the Chino Hills earthquake hit.

Realistically, however, if the recent quake had been severe, closer to the 6.7 magnitude that the USGS says is almost certain to hit the state in the next few decades, an earthquake early warning system wouldn’t have helped. The quake simply occurred too close to Los Angeles, with the ground-shaking waves hitting the city in less than 20 seconds. That’s why most of the research into early warning is focused on the San Andreas fault, which can produce earthquakes as close as 40 km (25 miles) from L.A., or as far as 200 km (nearly 125 miles) south of the city. With enough distance, a system-wide alert becomes viable. “Think of an earthquake as a cascade of events,” Jordan says. “They can generate tsunamis, which take some time to hit. Fire following earthquakes, that’s one of the biggest problems you can have. So you get the firetrucks ready, the station doors open. If you know what is happening, you can begin to prepare for what is going to happen later in that cascade.”

As limited as an earthquake early warning detection might be, the potential benefits—particularly in Southern California—seem clear. “It’s something we should be pushing a lot harder than we’re pushing. And we’ve fallen behind other countries. We’ve been a little remiss, to be honest,” Jordan says. He believes a system could be up and running in California in five years, at the earliest. That’s assuming that government agencies like the National Science Foundation and the USGS greenlight additional funding for research. Unfortunately, Jordan thinks it could take a large disaster to make that happen.

In the meantime, the SCEC is helping to prepare for just such a disaster, with the United States’ largest earthquake drill. Scheduled for this November, the Great Southern California Shakeout will test the region’s response to a simulated 7.8 magnitude quake at the southern end of the San Andreas fault. Using supercomputers, seismologists have created a scenario that calculates where the most severe damage would occur, how many fires might be started, and how many lives could be lost. The event will include at least 5 million participants throughout the region, from schools and firefighters to agencies like FEMA. “In a recent meeting, the L.A. County Fire Chief told us, ‘We’ve never really thought this through,’” Jordan says. “A lot of the standard operation procedures wouldn’t apply. That’s what we learned from Katrina. A big enough hammer blow shatters the system. We want to make sure that when that hammer comes down this time, and it’s going to come, the system doesn’t break.”

The EMP ThreatAugust 9, 2008; Page A10WSJImagine you're a terrorist with a single nuclear weapon. You could wipe out the U.S. city of your choice, or you could decide to destroy the infrastructure of the entire U.S. economy and leave millions of Americans to die of starvation or want of medical care.

The latter scenario is the one envisioned by a long-running commission to assess the threat from electromagnetic pulse, or EMP. The subject of its latest, and little discussed, report to Congress is the effect an EMP attack could have on civilian infrastructure. If you're prone to nightmares, don't read it before bedtime.

An EMP attack occurs when a nuclear bomb explodes high in the Earth's atmosphere. The electromagnetic pulse generated by the blast destroys all the electronics in its line of sight. For a bomb detonated over the Midwest, that includes most of the continental U.S. Few, if any, people die in the blast. It's what comes next that has the potential to be catastrophic. Since an EMP surge wipes out electronics, virtually every aspect of modern American life would come to a standstill.

The commission's list of horribles is 181 pages long. The chapter on food, for instance, catalogs the disruptions up and down the production chain as food spoils or has no way to get to market. Many families have food supplies of several days or more. But after that, and without refrigeration, what? The U.S. also has 75,000 dams and reservoirs, 168,000 drinking water-treatment facilities, and 19,000 wastewater treatment centers -- all with pumps, valves and filters run by electricity.

Getting everything up and running again is not merely a matter of flipping a switch, and the commission estimates that many systems could be out of service for months or a year or more -- far longer than emergency stockpiles or batteries could cover. The large transformers used in electrical transmission are no longer built in the U.S. and delivery time is typically three years. "Lack of high voltage equipment manufacturing capacity represents a glaring weakness in our survival and recovery," the commission notes.

Many industries rely on automated control systems maintained by small work forces. In emergencies -- say, during a blackout -- companies often have arrangements in place to borrow workers from outside the affected area to augment the locals and help with manual repairs. After an EMP attack, those workers would be busy in their home regions -- or foraging for food and water for their families.

The commission offers extensive recommendations for how industry and government can protect against the effects of an EMP attack and ensure a quicker recovery. They include "hardening" more equipment to withstand an electromagnetic pulse; making sure replacement equipment is on hand; training recovery personnel; increasing federal food stockpiles; and many others.

If not, our vulnerability "can both invite and reward attack," the commission's chairman, William Graham, told Congress last month. Iran's military writings "explicitly discuss a nuclear EMP attack that would gravely harm the United States," he said. James Shinn, an assistant secretary of defense, has said that China is developing EMP weapons. The commission calls an EMP attack "one of a small number of threats that can hold our society at risk of catastrophic consequences." The threat is real. It's past time to address it.

Some other things to consider that you won't find on these lists: 1. You can never have enough water and food - try to get enough for 2 weeks. 2. Get a crowbar, hammer, wrenches. Remember that you do have a jack in the truck of your car. You may need them to get someone out of the rubble when we have an earthquake. 3. Rope. You can get 50' of nylon rope at Big Lots for $3 a bundle. 4. Get leather gloves. Broken glass will be everywhere. 5. Have extra tennis shoes, socks, and clothes where you can get to them - how about a backpack in the trunk of your car? You may be stuck wearing the same clothes for a week, so take that into consideration. 6. Make sure everyone in your family knows a designated relative's phone number out of state so you can all call in and leave message for each other. In many cases it may be the only way you'll have peace of mind knowing that they are ok. 7. How will you protect your family from thugs and looters? You won't find this on any list. Take a lesson from Hurricanes Katrina and Wilma.

Remember, we have plans in place to take care of children and dependent adults on site in the event of an earthquake. If your children aren't able to go to school, bring them with you when you report.

Larger items such as cars, generators, motors and the like can be stowed in garges (preferably underground if poss and the shell of the garage Including floor ,cocooned with a steel mesh - comparable to steel reinforcing,,,this acts as what is known as a "Faraday Cage" after the great Will Faraday .

Searches for EMP protection on the net will give a good lead in for this....As an aside to this, the Soviets in their drive for all things pragmatic had the old electrical valve set as radios and for the controls of their bombers , including their comms.This was beacause valve sets are immune to EMP un like IC`s in more modern and commercial equipment that dont repel the pulse.

An interesting thread. Maybe it's just me and some "getting older" paranoia, but in the past I did not give much thought to being prepared at home for some length of time. However, since about the end of last year, my wife and I have both reconsidered this and now, while we don't live in a bunker, we do make an effort to have a stock of supplies, pet food, meds - and have been really cutting a lot of firewood for this winter. In the past, the wood stove was only considered a supplement, now it's seen as a possible only source of heat.

I ponder whether this is just crazy thinking or prudent pre-emptive action. But, while I'm pondering, I'm also staying prepared.

BackgroundStudies on natural hazard mortality are most often hazard-specific (e.g. floods, earthquakes, heat), event specific (e.g. Hurricane Katrina), or lack adequate temporal or geographic coverage. This makes it difficult to assess mortality from natural hazards in any systematic way. This paper examines the spatial patterns of natural hazard mortality at the county-level for the U.S. from 1970-2004 using a combination of geographical and epidemiological methods.

ResultsChronic everyday hazards such as severe weather (summer and winter) and heat account for the majority of natural hazard fatalities. The regions most prone to deaths from natural hazards are the South and intermountain west, but sub-regional county-level mortality patterns show more variability. There is a distinct urban/rural component to the county patterns as well as a coastal trend. Significant clusters of high mortality are in the lower Mississippi Valley, upper Great Plains, and Mountain West, with additional areas in west Texas, and the panhandle of Florida, Significant clusters of low mortality are in the Midwest and urbanized Northeast.

ConclusionsThere is no consistent source of hazard mortality data, yet improvements in existing databases can produce quality data that can be incorporated into spatial epidemiological studies as demonstrated in this paper. It is important to view natural hazard mortality through a geographic lens so as to better inform the public living in such hazard prone areas, but more importantly to inform local emergency practitioners who must plan for and respond to disasters in their community.

Survivalblog.com has a TON of information. If you go to their forum, stick with the Gulching thread unless you want to see some of the wild and wooly stuff going around. Oathkeepers is also on that forum.

Biogas, anaerobically digested makes methane/ natural gas. Use it in a properly tuned 2 stroke engine and you can generate electricity. Any gas stove can also use ths stuff to cook with.......... The only question is, will there be some Islamic religious taboo about cooking with "fart gas".

How able are you to deal with fire? Remember how south central burned and the FD could not get thru rioters.......

I don't know if there's much you can do in an urban area in the event of massive fires (other than the obvious benefits of having fire extinguishers throughout the home for smaller fires) In the event of urban riots, I'd probably consider filling some buckets with sand to extingusih any molotov cocktails that could come through the windows, maybe a fire tarp to smother curtains, etc. that caught fire (you can often buy one from stores that sell fire extinguishers). Other than that, I'd look at removing flammables (garbage bins, etc.) from around the house at such a time, and maybe a general policy of cutting back foliage or trees that could burn and represent a hazard to the residence, the way people living in fire-prone areas in the forests (such as San Diego, Flagstaff, etc.) are supposed to do but often don't. When a forest fire threatens houses in those areas, you often read about people spraying their house with a hose to try to make it less flammable - but in most civil emergencies, I would guess that water pressure drops dramatically.

After going through the riots and the Northridge and Whittier quakes when I lived in L.A., a couple of lessons I learned:

I was living in a condo townhouse in Westwood at the time of the Northridge quake, and walking around the neighbrohood afterward I noticed that a lot of the brick walls and chimmneys on the houses in the area collapsed - apparently, wood-frame structures bend with the shock wave of a quake but brick shatters. We took some roof damage that resulted in regular leaks for the next couple of years, a couple of neighbor's houses had major roof damage (like, you can see the blue sky from inside damage.) For emergency repairs to windows and roofs and a lot of other potential uses in an emergency, I've always bought a lot of heavy duty painter's plastic tarps when I see them on sale and store them away. The dark plastic ones make pretty fair blackout curtains if you wouldn't want to attract attention to your home in a city without regular power.

Food disappeared from the shelves in our neighborhood in L.A. or a while afterwards. I take the poor man's approach to food stockpiling - I pick up canned foods by the case at Smart and Final or Costco when on sale, as long as they are foods we would eat anyway - soups, canned veggies and meat, etc. - and store them in closets, under the bathroom sink, etc., after writing the month and year of purchase on the cans with a sharpie - a year or two after purchase, we eat them and regularly rotate through the stock (they would probably be good for a couple more years, but why take chances.) They should be foods your family will eat - an emergency is no time to introduce your children to canned beets).

I also bought the big jugs of Sparkletts water and stored those away on the balcony, etc.

After the Northridge quake, we really wanted to know what was going on and the extent of the damage (we were without power for a day or two) - having some battery-powered radios, and a huge stockpile of different types of batteries, is a good thing.

We have a substantial gasoline powered generator with enough power and enough outlets to keep our refrigerator and other things going , , , and the substantial length of construction grade extensions cords necessary to make the connections possible.

Japan's quake-ravaged northern communities continued to be pinched by food and water shortages Monday, while even cities far from the damage experienced "aftershocks" as the effects from Friday's disaster rippled through the economy and markets.

Rescue workers struggled to bring supplies to thousands of residents of towns along the northeast coast, hardest hit by the 8.9-magnitude quake and tsunami on Friday. Survivors appeared on television, saying they didn't have power and were running out of food and water. People atop one building had written a huge Chinese character for "water" on the roof, so it could be seen by rescue helicopters.

Residents are dealing with a lack of rations in Northern Japan, as transportation equipment is hampered in the aftermath of Friday's quake. WSJ's Eric Bellman reports from Sendai..The official death toll continued to climb, reaching around 1,800 by Monday afternoon. National broadcaster NHK reported that more than 450,000 people had moved to temporary shelters in the affected areas.

Miyoko Sugiyama, who lived a few blocks from the beach near the hard-hit city of Sendai, said she was happy to escape with her husband and 14-year-old dog. "There were 2,700 homes" in her neighborhood, she said. "Now there are only a few left."

Troubles continued to mount at the nuclear-power site in Fukushima Prefecture, where there was an explosion over the weekend. On Monday, an explosion occurred in the building housing a second reactor at the site, while the cooling system for a third reactor also failed, authorities said.

And in Tokyo, financial markets and commuters alike were pounded on the first working day after the quake.

Tokyo shares plunged, logging losses not seen since the first months of the global financial crisis. The Nikkei Stock Average closed at 9620.49, down 633.94 points or 6.2%—its sharpest single-day percentage loss since December 2008. The Topix index of all the Tokyo Stock Exchange First Section issues slid 68.55 points, or 7.5%, to 846.96, its heaviest loss since October 2008.

To prevent a cash crunch, the Bank of Japan injected a record 18 trillion yen (about $220 billion) into the short-term money markets and doubled the size of its asset-purchase program.

Ruined Homes and RadiationView Slideshow

Aly Song/Reuters

Emiko Ohta, 52, can't bear to look at the debris that was her home in Kuji, Iwate prefecture...Confusion reigned at Tokyo Electric Power Company, which said it would conduct rolling outages during the day in order to conserve power, then reversed course at the last minute when it saw energy demand was lower than usual. But Tepco's plans caused Tokyo's train companies to drastically cut back service, leaving thousands of commuters without a way to get to work.

"I was really confused about both the power cuts and the train services," said Nobuyoshi Takashimaya, a 56 year old employee at an insurance firm in Tokyo. He said he had to walk one hour from home to reach his office because his train wasn't running.

Planet Earth is dangerous. Those of us on the US, Canadian, and Central American West Coast should think seriously about what we can learn from the Japanese earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear reactor failures.

Japan’s massive earthquake and tsunami is alerting the US west coast that the same kind of thing could happen here. In fact, say experts who study the earth’s shifting crust, the “big one” may be past due.

The Pacific Northwest is especially vulnerable and could experience a 9.0 earthquake either onshore or offshore. If offshore the time to get to higher ground would be on the order of about 15 minutes. The Cascadia subduction zone could shake and cause offshore landslides that would cause massive wave movement.

The Cascadia earthquake of 1700 was previously thought to be part of a pattern of earthquakes that averaged 500 year intervals. But more recent research puts the average earthquake interval at 240 years. So we are about 71 years past the average Cascadia earthquake interval.

What about California? A Hayward fault quake could devastate the Bay Area forcing 200,000 out of their homes. SoCal is overdue for a Carrizo Plain earthquake. Risks come from other faults as well.

The US has several big earthquake risks including the New Madrid fault which last let loose in a major way in 1811 and 1812. A replay of especially severe 19th century natural disasters would make the earthquake in Japan small stuff in comparison.

What I'd like to know: How at risk are the San Onofre and Diablo Canyon nuclear power plants from a tsunami and/or strong earthquake? Should they be made safer from tsunami or earthquake risks? The take-home lesson from the Japanese nuclear power plant failures is that equipment and designs for maintaining sufficient reactor coolant water must be capable of handling severe earthquakes. The need for active systems (as distinct from passive systems) to cool nuclear reactors is a very unfortunate aspect of most (all?) operating nuclear power plants today.

DCPP is designed for storm surge waves of 36 feet and tsunami waves of 20 feet. In 1981, DCPP experienced a 31-foot storm surge. Because of the location and relative geometry of DCPP and the Cascadia (Washington-Oregon) earthquake, there would be no significant tsunami wave action at DCPP, particularly compared to the storm surge that has already been experienced at the plant. Waves from Alaska and Chile could be expected to reach DCPP in five and 13 hours, respectively.Practical advice: Got enough water to last a couple of weeks? Got enough batteries? Warm clothing if you lose electric power and natural gas?By Randall Parker at 2011 March 13 11:25 PM Dangers Natural Geological

The recent political instability in Bahrain, on the heels of the nuclear disaster in Japan, highlights the need to have an emergency plan in place before you need it.

A basic plan consists of three critical factors, the first being a prearranged rendezvous point for family or loved ones. The second factor is a communications plan in the event of cell phone tower failure; one of the tools you can utilize is a satellite telephone, which enables you to communicate outside the affected area whenever your cell phone coverage and Internet is out. The third factor is having a primary and secondary route of escape.

When looking at primary and secondary evacuation routes, geography is going to be critical. You need to think about your means of escape when, for example, your primary route may be taken out, due to things such as a tsunami. Your secondary means of escape can include either roads or trains, as well as many other global providers that you can subscribe to that will actually come and assist you in those kinds of events. These service are usually fee-based, and you usually have to sign up beforehand, but these services can aid you in getting out of the disaster zone either by air, road or by backpack if need be. They can also provide medical assistance if you are injured.

In a politically unstable environment, such as Bahrain on March 15, it is very important for you to have good intelligence as to what is taking place. Good intelligence will provide that tripwire and will enable you to make the decision to depart the affected area before it is too late. You can stay abreast of good intelligence by monitoring the local news and radio, websites such as STRATFOR, as well as any sources you may have in the local community that are linked to the government that may help understand what could be taking place.

For example, many of our readers, as well as many of our multinational clients, were able to reposition many of their personnel and assets out of Bahrain by monitoring our very detailed analyses as to what was taking place.

The “Above the Tearline” aspect of emergency action plans is: Don’t expect your government or your company to help you for 48 to 72 hours. Make a plan for yourself and know when it is time to execute it and get out.

My never-ceases-to-amaze-me wife has found the following concerning our expired shelf life PI:

What is the shelf life of KI tablets?

As with all drug products, the manufacturer must specify an expiration date of the drug on either the package or the individually wrapped tablet. The NRC distributes two tablet strengths of potassium iodide, 130 and 65 mg tablets. The shelf life of IOSAT 130 mg tablets is 7 years and the shelf life of ThyroSafe 65 mg tablets is 6 years.

For States interested in extending the shelf life of KI, the FDA has published guidance on shelf life extension for the tablet form of potassium iodide. Extending the shelf life of KI tablets is possible due to the inherent stability of the chemical form. However, the tablets must be stored under the conditions specified by the manufacturer to be considered for shelf life extension. In addition, this guidance only is intended for Federal agencies and State and local governments that maintain KI stockpiles under the conditions specified by the manufacturer.

The liquid formulation of KI also has a shelf-life of 5 years. The extension guidance does not apply to this product form.

Is it safe to take KI tablets with an expired shelf-life?

Yes, potassium iodide tablets are inherently stable and do not lose their effectiveness over time. Manufacturers must label their products with a shelf-life to ensure that consumers purchase safe and useful products.

According to FDA guidance on Shelf-life Extension, studies over many years have confirmed that none of the components of KI tablets, including the active ingredient, has any significant potential for chemical degradation or interaction with other components or with components of the container closure system when stored according to labeled directions. To date, the only observed changes during stability (shelf-life) testing have been the failure of some batches of KI tablets to meet dissolution specifications. Some tablets tested required slightly longer than the specified time to achieve dissolution. Even in the case of a failure of this sort, the product remains usable. In such cases, instructions can be provided to crush the tablets and mix them with a juice or other liquid prior to administration as suggested for emergency pediatric dosing.=============http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2014505732_quakepills16.html=============http://www.nrc.gov/about-nrc/emerg-preparedness/protect-public/ki-faq.html

What Happens When a Mega-Earthquake Strikes the U.S.?Japan is the most earthquake-savvy nation in the world—yet it was defenseless against last week's Sendai event, which has killed thousands and wreaked havoc on nuclear reactors and other infrastructure. With Japan still reeling, U.S. scientists are researching quake zones and pushing smarter building techniques to help minimize damage when the big one inevitably comes.

If you've been concerned about the Radiationfrom Japan's nuclear meltdown, and would likemore peace of mind knowing that you andyour family is safe for what is potentiallycoming here, then check this out right now:

This is the same technology used byNASA to help protect astronauts fromradiation and energetic problems inspace.

It works with sound waves that effectthe body on a sub-atomic level.

It was initially developed by CERN(the European Center for Nuclear Research)

It's really, really powerful stuff, Iwas given a hands on demo. I have tosay I was EXTREMELY skeptical of thiswhen I first heard about it, but Adelcompletely blew me away. The thingshe showed me were so extraordinary,I simply can't write them as theyare too hard to believe.

This technology is, in my opinion,100 years more advanced than anythingWestern Medicine has access to today,it's something Spielberg would putinto his latest sci-fi flick.

In a nutshell What this technologydoes is, allows the cells in your bodyto reach a state of "organized energeticfield" so that the cells in your bodycan react to radiation in a neutral way.

Radiation, according to Adel, is simplyan energetic frequency that the body cannotdeal with, it causes massive cellular dis-function, and eventually, cellularfailure(cancer+death)

Not with this technology though, and thebest part is, you can start using thisin just minutes from now, here's the link again:

The Health and Human Services Department (HHS) said Monday it would buy more than 400,000 doses of an anti-radiation drug for nearly $22 million. Buffalo Grove, Illinois-based Akorn will sell HHS 390,000 doses of a calcium-based compound and 60,000 doses of a zinc-based solution, which together work to cleanse some types of radiation from the bodies of those who have been exposed. The five-year contract has an option for HHS to buy an additional 500,000 doses of each drug.

Akorn is, in fact, the American distributor of German manufacturer Hameln Pharmaceuticals, which makes the Ca-DTPA and Zn-DTPA products. The two drugs have already been approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The deal is part of Project Bioshield, a $5.6 billion program aiming to encourage pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies to do the R&D and production of bioterror-related vaccines and medications.

As we reported a couple of months ago, the radiation aspect of BioShield has come under ever more intense criticism by experts and industry insiders. A major goal of BioShield is the treatment of acute radiation syndrome (ARS), but Ca-DTPA and Zn-DTPA would not do it. The two drugs will not address ARS symptoms such as neutropenia (depletion of the body’s infection-fighting white blood cells), and they also would also not treat radiation from sources other than plutonium, americium, and curium. A year ago HHS bought 1.7 million pediatric doses of liquid potassium iodide, medication which prevents the thyroid gland from absorbing too much radioactive iodine but which does not prevent the effects of other radioactive elements. Note that Akorn will deliver more than 400,000 doses, but the ARS solicitation requests only 100,000 doses, with a possibility for an additional 100,000.

Robert Marsella, senior vice president of San Diego-based Hollis-Eden Pharmaceuticals, a persistent and eloquent critic of the HHS anti-radiation approach said: “The dosing amount [of the Akorn contract] was surprising due to the fact the product has to be delivered the first day of radiation exposure and has to be given intravenously …. And it’s specific to a particular radiation isotope that is not used in all nuclear weapons, so that’s what’s so surprising.”

-read more in this Zack Phillips’s CQ report (sub. req.); read more about the two drugs at Akorn Web site; and see the ARS section of Hollis-Eden Web site

Electronic storage is great, for years I have recommended things like survival laptops and tablets. With a good solar charger these devices can last for years in an off the grid environment.If your anything like most of the survival minded people that come to this site, you probably bookmark and save a ton of good survival articles. While I love electronic devices, when the SHTF you need to have backups of all your valuable survival information.You need your own SHTF Proof Survival Manual.Lately I have been saving a ton of how to articles to my NOOK but I don’t stop there. The nook is great for storing survival books and articles but I also started laminating the most important articles and putting them into my own personal survival manual.For under $40 bucks you can make yourself a good SHTF proof survival binder.First, you need to buy a good laminator and a pack of lamination sheets.You can get a Good Laminator on Amazon and a pack of 50 lamination sheets for around $40. This will allow you to put about 400 articles in your personal survival manual.Second, I condense the articles down so I can fit at least 4 to a page (8 double sided) this gives you roughly 400 articles with only 50 pieces of paper. Remember the lamination adds some weight so you don’t want to go crazy here. Print only those articles that you think you will really need post SHTF.I usually condense articles down in Microsoft word, or I shrink down specific pages from books so I can fit them into my 4up format. I then 3 ring punch the laminated pages and put them in a good zippered binder to protect them from the elements.What kinds of articles do I add to my personal survival manual?My NOOK can pretty much hold everything I need so I fill that up with as much information as I can get. For my Binder I take only the things that I think I will need in a post SHTF world.Maps, Evacuation Routes and Bug Out LocationsMedical information and first aid instructionsHow To articlesPictures of edible plantsCommunication frequency charts, notes and antenna diagrams / formulasPrimitive Skills & instructional materialsTrapping DiagramsAnd anything that you may have a hard time remembering

Logged

"You see, it's not the blood you spill that gets you what you want, it's the blood you share. Your family, your friendships, your community, these are the most valuable things a man can have." Before Dishonor - Hatebreed

This is what EMP is, and how it might affect the U.S. Hundreds of thousands of people would likely starve to death within a few months. Most vehicles would have their electronics fried and would not operate. No electricity, no phone service, no refrigeration. People on life-saving drugs would not be able to get them in most cases. Hospitals would have no power after their generators failed. It's a nightmare scenario - and one that our Congress has failed to address.

Newt Gingrich is one of the very few politicians who understands this threat and has said he would make protecting against it a priority. To do so would involve "hardening" and shielding the country's electrical grid, as well as mandating "hardened" pulse-immune electronics in vehicles and other electronic devices. Such hardened circuitry exists, but is used in only very few military critical aircraft and computer systems presently. Interestingly - tubes would be unaffected, so if you have a tube-amplified radio for example, it would still operate after one of these pulses. Most vehicles made after about 1968 would cease to operate, however - because they rely on electronic circuitry that would be fried.